Where'd You Go, Bernadette

by Maria Semple

Bernadette Fox is notorious.

To Elgie Branch, a Microsoft wunderkind, she's his hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled wife.
To fellow mothers at the school gate, she's a menace.
To design experts, she's a revolutionary architect.
And to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, quite simply, mum.

Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee must take a trip to the end of the earth to find her.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a compulsively readable, irresistibly written, deeply touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's place in the world.

• ISBN10: 0316204285
• ISBN13: 9780316204286
• Publish Date: 14 August 2012 (first published 1 January 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Little Brown and Company
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

Beware: This book is utter chaos.

After a summer of little reading joy, October certainly seems to make up for it with some cracking reads. I'm not usually keen to pick bestsellers because they don't often live up to expectations, but this one worked for me.

Where's You Go, Bernadette? is the story of a family of endearing characters, all of whom seems to be persecuted for their individual eccentricities by various people from the confines of the particular Seattle community they live in. However, not all is well. There are strains and stresses that take their toll and lead up to events which cause each of the characters to examine their lives and their relationship with their surroundings. At the heart of the story is the bond between Bernadette and her daughter, Bee:

"I hit the pause button.‘How do you even know this?’ I demanded.
‘Abbey Road?’ Mom shrugged. ‘I don’t know, you just know it.’
She unpaused the CD. When ‘Here Comes the Sun’ started, what happened? No, the sun didn’t come out, but Mom opened up like the sun breaking through the clouds.
You know how in the first few notes of that song, there’s something about George’s guitar that’s just so hopeful? It was like when Mom sang, she was full of hope, too. She even got the irregular clapping right during the guitar solo.
When the song was over, she paused it.
‘Oh, Bee,’ she said. ‘This song reminds me of you.’
She had tears in her eyes.
‘Mom!’
This is why I didn’t want her to come to the first- grade elephant dance. Because the most random things get her way too full of love.
‘I need you to know how hard it is for me sometimes.’ Mom had her hand on mine.
‘What’s hard?’
‘The banality of life,’ she said."

As mentioned, the writing is chaotic - the story is told from different POVs and through different snippets of media: email, reports, interviews as well as straight narrative. It is littered with cultural cynicism, witty comedy, slapstick, and thinly veiled contempt for the exaltation of the mundane.

And why not? When boredom and depression are issues to be faced, I, too, like to challenge the routine:

"My heart started racing, not the bad kind of heart racing, like, I’m going to die. But the good kind of heart racing, like, Hello, can I help you with something? If not, please step aside because I’m about to kick the shit out of life."

Different. It is about a bunch of whiny, annoying people, but there is just something wonderful about Bernadette. The story is really a bunch or emails, articles and letters read by Bee, her daughter, to try to understand what happened to her mother, Bernadette. It's a cute, quick fun read. I would really give it 3.5 stars if I could.

[boghunden]

Med udtalelser som “guddommeligt morsom” og “Semple har skrevet en både fantastisk og sjov roman,” så var der lagt op til et stort læseeventyr. Mine forventninger blev ikke indfriet, men jeg tror mest af alt det skyldes, at jeg ikke forstod bogen. Målgruppen vurderer jeg til at være modne kvinder, en kategori jeg trods alt ikke selv hører ind under endnu ;)

Bogens handling fangede mig på ingen måder, men det hele var krydret med sjove passager, bl.a. om hvor meget ubrugeligt skrammel man kan ende med at købe i Ikea, bare fordi det er billigt, og det var disse ting der gjorde, at jeg trods alt kom gennem bogen. Det virkede lidt som om, Bernadette havde en (meget) forsinket fødselsdepression, og det er på ingen måde noget, jeg kan sætte mig ind i, da jeg som bekendt ikke har nogen børn. Jeg ville rigtig gerne kunne lide denne bog og jeg prøvede nok også for hårdt på. Jeg var på nippet til at opgive flere gange, men holdt alligevel ud. Inde midt i bogen var et afsnit på 17 sider, der var skrevet som et interview med forskellige arkitekter. Det sagde mig absolut intet og det tog mig 50 minutter at få læst de sider. Ikke fordi det var svært, men fordi tv’et var tændt og jeg bare ikke kunne blive fanget af de sider.

Det hele er ikke skidt. Sidste del af bogen, især de sidste 50 sider, var okay og slutningen sneg sig også op på lidt mere end bare okay. Jeg forstod bare ikke rigtig, hvorfor Bernadette forsvandt, udover at hun bare var lidt træt af livet, men hvem er ikke det af og til? Som det beskrives i bogen, virker det ikke som om hun er deprimeret, hun er bare træt af selve øjeblikket. Ja, jeg synes den var underlig og jeg forstod den ikke. Og så følte jeg mig bare for ung. Jeg har sendt bogen til læsning hos min mor, så må vi se om hun får mere ud af den end jeg gjorde.

[elvinagb]

A great book on what it means to be family, to be genius and to find out what it means to be true to yourself and be your child's mom and not their best friend.